August 18, 2011

U-2 Spy Plane's Retirement Signals End of Era

After more than 50 years gathering intelligence 13 miles above the ground, the United States’ U-2 spy planes will be phased out and replaced by unmanned drones by 2015, The New York Times reported this week. Find out more about the long history of the high-altitude aircraft, which first took to the skies during the tense Cold War era and has played a crucial role in recent operations, particularly in Afghanistan.

High-altitude reconnaissance dates back to the American Civil War, when both the Union and Confederate armies used hot air balloons to gather intelligence about enemy troop positions. By World War II, planes and cameras had advanced enough for photoreconnaissance to play a key role in bombing campaigns. As tensions with the Soviet...

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